May 12 marked the 100th anniversary of Katharine Hepburn’s birth. Other actors and actresses may have had longer careers, but none ever stayed at the top for as long as Hepburn did in her remarkable 62 year screen career. That career spanned from 1932’s A Bill of Divorcement to 1994’s made-for-TV One Christmas neither of which are currently available on DVD (One Christmas had a brief release, but is currently unavailable).

To commemorate the occasion, Warner Bros., is releasing six of Hepburn’s less remembered films on DVD today. Of the six, 1979’s made-for-television movie The Corn Is Green is by far the best. This was an amazing achievement on several levels. It is that rare remake of a much loved film that is even better than the original. It is also one of the rare TV movies that plays like a theatrical event.

The part of Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green is the only role that Hepburn and her rival for the title of “Greatest Screen Actress”, Bette Davis, both played. Davis was 37 and a bit young to be playing the middle-aged schoolteacher who deplores the conditions she finds in a Welsh mining village. The part had been played to great acclaim by Ethel Barrymore, then in her early sixties, in her last Broadway triumph. Hepburn at 72 was would seem a bit old to play the part, but you would never know it from the fervor with which she sinks into her Emmy-nominated role. It would have made sense for Warner Bros. to release the 1945 Davis version at the same time, but perhaps we’ll get that next year in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Miss Davis’ birth.

The Corn Is Green, in either version, compares favorably to How Green Was My Valley and Sons and Lovers, two other screen classics set in coal mining villages.

The other Hepburn films being released today are Morning Glory, Sylvia Scarlet, Dragon Seed, Without Love and Undercurrent.

Morning Glory, which was Hepburn’s third film and the one for which she won her first Oscar, is the story of an aspiring actress that parallels Hepburn’s own early career. She’s good in it, but was even better in her next film, the definitive screen version of Little Women. That film is, for many (including me), the film that should have won her that first Oscar.

Sylvia Scarlet was arguably the nadir of both Hepburn and director George Cukor’s careers. The tale of a girl masquerading as a boy was nothing new. Hepburn is not convincing as either a boy or a girl in the film. Her comic timing is completely off. It would take Howard Hawks to teach her how to play comedy two years later in his film Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant, the one participant in Sylvia Scarlet who emerges unscathed.

Dragon Seed, from Pearl S. Buck’s novel about the 1937 Japanese invasion of China, was an attempt on MGM’s part to duplicate the success of The Good Earth all the way down to the casting of Caucasians as Asians in all the principal roles. Hepburn, Walter Huston and most of her other co-stars are horribly miscast. Only Oscar-nominated Aline MacMahon manages some modicum of believability.

Without Love was the third of the nine films Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy and the second comedy. It suffers in comparison with the great Hepburn-Tracy comedies, Woman of the Year, Adam’s Rib, Pat and Mike and Desk Set, but Lucille Ball has one of her best roles in support.

Hepburn’s only attempt at film noir came with the film Undercurrent. The film co-starred Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum and is highly regarded in some circles, but you really have to suspend disbelief to accept Hepburn as the kind of passive creature Joan Fontaine excelled at in Rebecca and Suspicion.

Many of Hepburn’s great films and performances have previously been made available on DVD. They include these gems:

Little Women, David O. Zelznick’s last production for RKO, directed by Cukor, remains the definitive version of the Louisa May Alcott classic mainly because of its sharp pacing and the combined talents of an extraordinary cast, not the least of whom is Miss Hepburn as Jo. You also get Joan Bennett as Amy, Jean Parker as Beth, Frances Dee as Meg, Douglass Montgomery as Laurie, Henry Stephenson as Mr. Laurence, Paul Lukas as Prof. Bhaer, Spring Byington as Marmee and the incomparable Edna May Oliver as Aunt March. The film won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Based on Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Adams won Hepburn her second Oscar nomination. Many at the time thought she should’ve won over Bette Davis in Dangerous. She was definitely at her best as the small town wallflower opposite Fred MacMurray.

Stage Door, directed by Gregory LaCava on the heels of My Man Godfrey, is generally considered a drama, but its best moments are the comic ones. Hepburn more than holds her own against such masters of comedy as Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Adolphe Menjou and Ann Miller. The film features the classic line “the calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower…” which has been mimicked heavily ever since. It received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress for Andrea Leeds. La Cava won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Director.

Bringing Up Baby is one of the screen’s great screwball comedies. Hepburn and Cary Grant tickle the funny bone like no one else, and are just as delightfully supported by May Robson and Charlie Ruggles. According to Hawks, Hepburn took on-set lessons in comedy timing from featured player Walter Catlett. She was obviously a fast learner.

Cukor’s Holiday is a remake of the 1930 film from the play written by Philip Barry, the author of Hepburn’s most famous stage turn in The Philadelphia Story. She and Grant again make movie magic. Lew Ayres gives perhaps the film’s best performance as Hepburn’s burned out younger brother. Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon supply most of the comedy.

The Philadelphia Story, also directed by Cukor, won James Stewart an Oscar (mainly for his body of work) in 1940. Hepburn, who won her third Oscar nomination for this, and Grant are the film’s true stars with Stewart, Ruth Hussey, Virginia Weidler, Mary Nash and Roland Young all turning in superb supporting performances. The roles played by Grant, Stewart and Hussey were played on stage by Joseph Cotten, Van Heflin and Shirley Booth, none of whom were yet film stars. The film won Oscar nominations for Hussey and Cukor as well as Hepburn and Stewart, and for Best Picture. Hepburn won her only New York Film Critics Award for this performance.

George Stevens’ Woman of the Year was the first collaboration between Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and right from the start their teaming proved magical. She’s a fashion editor. He’s a sports writer. And you get the picture. Hepburn won her fourth Oscar nomination and the film won for its screenplay by Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner Jr.

Adam’s Rib, again directed by Cukor, was the sixth Hepburn-Tracy film and their best since Woman of the Year. An uproarious comedy in which Hepburn plays a lawyer defending a wife accused of killing her husband while Tracy plays the D.A. who must prosecute the case. Judy Holliday, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Tom Ewell and Hope Emerson are also quite wonderful in support. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin received Oscar nominations for their screenplay.

The African Queen, which is tied up in rights disputes, is available only as an import DVD. Reportedly the film needs restoration which must be approved by director John Huston’s estate, but they allegedly want too much money. This is the one for which Humphrey Bogart won an Oscar for basically playing a caricature of himself. He’s good, but Hepburn, earning her fifth Oscar nomination, playing a missionary funneled through Eleanor Roosevelt, is the real joy. Huston was nominated for both his direction and screenplay. The film was co-written with James Agee.
 
Cukor’s Pat and Mike winningly recaptures the magic of Adam’s Rib, with Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin again winning an Oscar nomination for their screenplay in this romp presenting Hepburn as a championship golfer and Tracy as her trainer.

Summertime presents Hepburn in the middle-aged spinster period of her career which began with The African Queen. It is my favorite Hepburn performance, for which she received her sixth Oscar nomination playing a thirty-five-year-old mid-western secretary who spends her life savings on a trip to Venice before settling into middle-age spinsterhood. Stunningly photographed by Jack Hildyard and directed by David Lean. Lean won the New York Film Critics Award as well as an Oscar nomination for his fine work on the last of his “small” films.

The Rainmaker, directed by Joseph Anthony, won Hepburn, still in middle-aged spinster mode, her seventh Oscar nomination. Visibly too old for the part of the plain Texas girl, she nevertheless shines in the film’s numerous emotional scenes.

The Joseph L. Mankiewicz drama Suddenly, Last Summer presents Hepburn in what is essentially a supporting role (one of extremely few such supporting turns) as Elizabeth Taylor’s mean aunt. Hepburn plots to have Taylor lobotomized rather than reveal the truth about her son’s death in this over-heated Tennessee Williams melodrama. The ensuing fireworks were enough to win Taylor her third Oscar nomination and Hepburn her eighth.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Sidney Lumet, presents Hepburn in a devastating portrayal of Eugene O’Neill’s drug addicted mother for which she won her ninth Oscar nomination. She and her three co-stars, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell, each won acting awards at the Venice Film Festival. Lumet was nommed by the DGA for his deft direction which, without changing a word of dialogue, subtly transforms O’Neill’s concentration from the father played by Richardson to the mother played by Hepburn, just by the manner in which he places his camera.

Hepburn’s final collaboration with Tracy (who died shortly after filming was completed) was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. As the liberal parents of daughter Katharine Houghton, Hepburn’s real life niece, the pair must face up to their ideals when their daughter brings home African-American fiancé Sidney Poitier. Dated now, but still memorable for the interplay between Hepburn and Tracy, the film was nominated for a slew of Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Stanley Kramer), Supporting Actor (Cecil Kellaway), Supporting Actress (Beah Richards), Actor (Tracy) and Actress (Hepburn). Hepburn finally won her second Oscar on her tenth nomination.
 
The Lion in Winter provides Hepburn with one of her best roles as Eleanor of Aquitane. It’s the power of the performances of Hepburn and Peter O’Toole as Henry II that set this one apart. It is so superior to the TV remake with Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart that it makes the later, word-for-word copy, look like a remake of King Richard and the Crusaders or some other inferior film. Hepburn won her third Oscar on her eleventh nomination. The film also won Oscars for John Barry’s score and James Goldman’s screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director (Anthony Harvey), Actor (O’Toole) and Costume Design (Margaret Furse).

The Glass Menagerie is a made-for-TV production re-uniting Hepburn with director Harvey. Though criticized in some circles for being too dominant to play Amanda, Hepburn’s Emmy-nominated performance is superior in my estimation to both Gertrude Lawrence’s performance in the 1950 screen version and Joanne Woodward’s in the 1987 version. Joanna Miles as Laura and Michael Moriarty as the Gentleman Caller won Emmys for their fine performances and Sam Waterston as Tom was nominated as well. Harvey received a DGA nomination.

One of Hepburn’s last big screen performances, On Golden Pond is a character study about an elderly couple played by Hepburn and Henry Fonda, was conceived as the film to finally win Fonda an Oscar, which it did. Surprisingly, Hepburn won one too, her fourth on her twelfth nomination, an acting record on both counts. The film won a total of ten nominations including Best Supporting Actress (Jane Fonda) and Best Director (Mark Rydell). It also won Ernest Thompson an Oscar for adapting his own stage play in addition to the ones won by its two stars.

To date only Meryl Streep has broken her record for nominations.

No one has matched her number of acting Oscars.

-Peter J. Patrick (May 29, 2007)

This week’s plethora of DVD releases is enough to start even the heartiest DVD collector’s head spinning – what to buy, what to buy, what to ignore…

This being the Tuesday before Memorial Day, Warner Bros. is releasing Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated Letters from Iwo Jima in a two-disc special edition and reissuing his Flags of Our Fathers in a two-disc special edition at $40 a pop retail. Or you can by both films plus a documentary, Heroes of Iwo Jima,in a Five-Disc Collector's Edition for $50. Go with the five disc set.

As harrowing as Letters from Iwo Jima is, it has nothing on Kon Ichakawa’s bleak masterpiece, Fires on the Plain, or even the more uplifting The Burmese Harp. Each World War II saga is told from the Japanese perspective and both wererecently given their due on Criterion special editions.

Other 2006 films making their DVD debuts this week include Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, a diffident update of The Third Man with a little Casablanca thrown in; Mel Gibson’s latest ode to violence, Apocalypto; and Roger Mitchell’s Venus with Peter O’Toole in a heartfelt performance that won him his eighth Oscar nomination.

Carol Reed’s The Third Man is also back in a new and improved Criterion edition. Criterion is also releasing Kenjo Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff, Silver Lion winner at the 1954 Venice Film Festival. Previously, Criterion released Mizoguschi’s other famed film, Ugetsu. These are probably the two best known Japanese samurai films not directed by Akira Kurosawa; and in many ways each are superior.

One of the best things to happen in the world of DVD within the last year has been Fox taking over distribution of the MGM catalogue from Sony. Clueless Sony stifled the release of many of the classics from the MGM catalogue, consisting mainly of United Artists and Samuel Goldwyn films (the actual MGM classics having been sold to Ted Turner and now controlled by Warner Bros.). Fox, on the other hand, has wholeheartedly embraced the release of classic films from this catalogue and has recently chosen two of my favorite films of the 1970s, Ulu Grosbard’s True Confessions and Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us, to release.Now they are turning their attention to an even older era.

Fox is now re-issuing the Samuel Goldwyn Company release Ball of Fire along with a number of Gary Cooper films never before on DVD. This includes Casanova Brown which reunited him with his Pride of the Yankees co-star Teresa Wright in a lighthearted comedy that was nominated for three 1944 Oscars.

Ball of Fire, co-written by Billy Wilder and directed by Howard Hawks, was nominated for four 1941 Oscars. A hilarious riff on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it stars Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck at the height of their careers and features marvelous supporting turns by Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Richard Haydn and others.

Universal has a number of vintage releases scheduled including Mark Sandrich’s So Proudly We Hail!, one of the first women-in-war films, with Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard in an Oscar-nominated performance, and Cecil B. DeMille’s Unconquered featuring Cooper and Goddard.

Fox has Samuel Fuller’s Hell and High Water, for which Fuller received a 1954 Directors Guild of America nod; Delmar Daves’ Broken Arrow, nominated for three 1950 Oscars; and a trio of musicals – Pigskin Parade, On the Riviera and Can-Can.

Despite being advertised as a Judy Garland musical, Pigskin Parade is more a Stuart Erwin comedy in which Patsy Kelly has more screen time than either Garland or the equally prominently billed Betty Grable. Erwin inexplicably won an Oscar nod in the supporting category despite his starring role. It’s fairly typical of the wholesome sports films being made the time.

On the Riviera is a re-make of Maurice Chevalier’s Folies Bergere, which is not on DVD. Danny Kaye won a Golden Globe for his dual role in this amusing film. Gene Tierney receives equal billing but has little to do. Gwen Verdon shines in a couple of dance numbers.

Can-Can is the best of the lot if only for Cole Porter’s score. The film itself is a bit flat despite the star power of Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jordan. My biggest beef is that the lyrics to the great title tune are not sung – was it because the producers wanted the audience to concentrate on the dancers’ legs or because the words were considered too risqué for Hollywood at the time?

In addition to the Eastwood films, Warner Bros. is releasing the 1978 Dustin Hoffman cult classic, Straight Time and Sidney Lumet’s acclaimed 1981 film, Prince of the City. They are also re-issuing the most successful TV mini-series of all time, Roots, in a special 30th anniversary edition.

The big news this week, though, is that Saturday May 26 marked the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth and every DVD company that owns the rights to a John Wayne film is either releasing or re-releasing it this week. Warner Bros. has the choicest catalogue, and is re-issuing both Rio Bravo and The Cowboys in two-disc special editions.

Personally, I’ve always thought Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo was overrated - it’s way too jokey for my taste. It’s Quentin Tarantino’s favorite film though, and he is providing the commentary, so maybe if I listen to it I’ll learn what I’ve been missing all these years.

I’ve always thought Mark Rydell’s The Cowboys was as underrated as Rio Bravo was overrated. It’s unusually somber for a Wayne film and features stellar supporting performances by non-Wayne regulars Roscoe Lee Browne, Robert Carradine and Colleen Dewhurst among others.

Warner Bros.’ new-to-DVD John Wayne films this week include Allegheny Uprising, Big Jim McLain, Reunion in France, Tycoon and the best of the lot Trouble Along the Way. I was nine when I first saw this one. Marie Windsor as high school coach Wayne’s nasty ex-wife battling him for custody of adorable Sherry Jackson scared the hell out of me. You also get Donna Reed as a social worker, Charles Coburn as a priest and James Dean as a football player. What more could you want?

Wayne’s ten best? The already released Stagecoach, The Long Voyage Home, Red River, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 3 Godfathers, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. All, except Howard Hawks’ Red River, are directed byJohn Ford.

-Peter J. Patrick (May 22, 2007)

She was Winston Churchill’s favorite actress. She was so popular at the height of her career that Mussolini wrote her begging her to intercede with Franklin Roosevelt on behalf of America’s young men and ask him not to enter World War II. She didn’t.

Everyone’s idea of the perfect daughter, Deanna Durbin (Audio CD of Durbin's 24 Greatest Hits) was a star at 15, an Oscar winner at 17 and the highest paid actress in Hollywood at 21. We’ll take a look back at her career and then discuss this week’s crop of new DVD releases.

When Universal’s horror franchise ran out of gas in the late 30s, the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was saved by the teenage actress whose franchise it picked up when MGM inadvertently dropped her.

Legend has it that Louis B. Mayer, not needing the services of two budding adolescent actress-singers, told his flacks to “dump the fat one.” While neither was “fat”, both were a bit pudgy. Mayer had meant Judy Garland, but the publicists thought he was talking about Durbin and so let her go. MGM’s loss was Universal’s gain. They immediately cast her as one of three young actresses in a lighthearted musical comedy that unexpectedly became a smash hit and won three Oscar nominations including one for best picture: Three Smart Girls.

Durbin’s next film, One Hundred Men and a Girl, in which she was given the lead, was an even bigger hit, securing five Oscar nominations and an Academy Award for Best Musical Score. Her next two films, Mad About Music and That Certain Age, won a combined six Oscar nominations (4 for Mad About Music and 2 for That Certain Age) and she herself was given an Oscar, along with Mickey Rooney that same year, “for their significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and as juvenile players setting a high standard of ability and achievement.”

She would continue to have one of Hollywood’s greatest careers for another ten years, after which she quit show business to marry her third husband, move to France and live happily ever after.

Today’s Hollywood flacks at both Universal and MGM couldn’t care less. Universal has issued only six of her films in a throwaway two disc set (Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack) and MGM has yet to release It's a Date, the rights to which it acquired when it remade the film as Nancy Goes to Rio starring Jane Powell.

While the United States doesn’t have access to many of these films, other areas of the world do. Universal England has released more than twenty of her films on region 2 DVD, available either singly or in sets. Brazil’s Classic Line has released that lone MGM film It's a Date under the Portuguese title Rival Sublime. It is playable in the United States as a Region 1 disc.

Durbin so despised the character she played in film after film, “Little Miss Fixit who bursts into song,” that she never seemed to take herself seriously while the world fell in love with her over and over again. She beguiled Joseph Cotton with Begin the Beguine, Gene Kelly with Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year and Charles Laughton with Danny Boy. Such legendary character players as Charles Winninger, Alice Brady, Barry Fitzgerald, Eugene Pallette and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall couldn’t steal a scene from her, though they all tried.

A Durbin Sampling

First Love (1939), originally titled Cinderella as it is a modern re-telling of the story, the film had its name changed once publicity centered around Robert Stack giving Durbin her first screen kiss. Directed by Henry Koster.

It's a Date (1940) in which Durbin and her mother, Kay Francis, vie for both Walter Pidgeon and a highly sought after stage role. It all turns out alright in the end with Durbin in a nun’s habit singing a stirring rendition of Ave Maria. Directed by William A. Seiter. Remade by MGM as Nancy Goes to Rio in 1950 with Jane Powell and Ann Sothern.

It Started With Eve (Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack) (1941) is a delightful screwball comedy in which Durbin charms both dying millionaire Charles Laughton and his playboy grandson, Robert Cummings. Directed by Henry Koster.

The Amzing Mrs. Holliday (1942) followed on the heels of Journey for Margaret and The Pied Piper, and pre-dates such later orphans-in-peril films as The Boy With Green Hair and The Search. Durbin poses as the widow of a sea captain in order to protect the orphans she rescued in China. Officially credited to Bruce Manning, Jean Renoir allegedly had a hand in directing this film between his Swamp Water and This Land Is Mine shoots.

His Butler's Sister (1943) is a screwball romp in which Durbin works as a maid for brother Pat O’Brien in order to charm his boss, composer Franchot Tone. Directed by two-time Oscar winner, Frank Borzage.

Out on DVD Today

Guillermo del Toro’s Pan's Labyrinth was nominated for six 2006 Academy Awards and won three (Art Direction, Cinematography and Makeup). It’s a complex film that works on the dual levels of a frightening war story and a fantasy film. Twelve-year-old Spanish actress Ivana Baquero gives a remarkable performance as the princess from another world trapped in the reality of this one. The DVD interviews with de Toro are relevant to the understanding of the story and its many complexities.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Film of 2006 when it was finallyshown theatrically in the U.S. 27 years after it was first shown in France. The film, about the French resistance during World War II, is appreciated more today than it was when it was first released when spy films were in constant supply. Lino Ventura is superb in the central role and there is affecting supporting work by the entire cast, most notably Jean-Pierre Cassel and Simone Signoret.

Peter Glenville’s Becket was nominated for twelve 1964 Oscars and won one for Edward Anhalt’s screenplay. Beautifully costumed, designed and photographed, it is the acting that towers above everything else. This is especially true in the interplay between Richard Burton as the reluctant Saint Thomas Becket and Peter O’Toole as the enigmatic Henry II, a role he would reprise four years later in Oscar-nominated The Lion in Winter. The DVD release was held up for ages awaiting O’Toole’s commentary which was finally acquired.

Also being released this week is the critically panned The Fountain.

-Peter J. Patrick (May 15, 2007)